Middle East Strategy at Harvard

Michael S. Doran is an academic expert on the Middle East who has also held senior government posts related to Middle East policy and to strategic communication. He currently teaches at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. Immediately before coming to NYU, he served as Senior Adviser to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the State Department. In addition, he held an appointment at the Pentagon, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy, and at the National Security Council, as the Senior Director of the Near East and North Africa.

At State and DoD, Doran was responsible for promoting greater cooperation between the two departments in the field of strategic communication, with a particular emphasis on countering ideological support for terrorism. At the White House, Doran helped to devise and coordinate national strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and efforts to contain Iran.

Prior to government service, Doran taught at Princeton University and, before that, at the University of Central Florida. His publications include a book, Pan-Arabism before Nasser, which analyzes the first Arab-Israeli war as an inter-Arab conflict; and an article in Foreign Affairs, “Somebody Else’s Civil War,” which was first article to advance the thesis, now common wisdom, that Osama bin Laden used the attacks of 9/11 as a tool for influencing a conflict between Muslims.

Posts by Michael Doran